Posada del Puruay Cajamarca

... around the town, taking some photos with my new (and rubbish) camera and trying to find a decent cup of coffee. This is nigh on impossible but exploring is half the fun. One night I had a delicious enchilada for dinner with some amazing hot sauce - food with flavour! Such a novelty!<br><br>One thing I neglected to mention was that on arrival in Peru I was greeted immediately with numerous motorised rickshawes, the likes of which I have not seen elsewhere ...

... and asked who my favorite soccer player was. I think I failed their football quiz and after a half a dozen laps around the track they ran off to start another game of soccer.<br> Later we headed out with Cari to a town nearby and hiked out to a waterfall. We also went to the Ventanillas, or little windows, which is kind of what they look like. What they are is niches carved into the wall by civilizations that go back to the days before the Incas and they were used as funerary ...

... I can't say that visiting these sites improved my understanding of what happened. I still cannot understand why the conquering Europeans were so violent and hateful towards a culture that was so advanced and beautiful in its way. Okay, not Christian. I guess I'll never be able to understand the inability of people to be open to people who believe differently than they do, and the need to subjugate ...

My next stop on my circuit through northern Peru was Cajamarca. Getting there, however, would not be easy. I could take a collectivo back to Pedro Ruiz and from there a bus to Chiclayo where I would change to Cajamarca. This is the main route and is mostly paved. However, there is an alternate shorter route that would take 12 hours by car...crossing the 3678 meter pass called Abra de Barra Negro (Black Mud Pass), plunging down to the valley of the ...

... sleep, ate two meals and walked around town to get oriented. Ben liked a steak (lomo saltado) the hotel restaurant made so much he had it for both lunch and dinner. Today we took a tour of some fantastic Inca and pre-Inca ruins located in a place called Cumbemayo. The ruins include irrigation canals carved out of stone beginning some three thousand years ago, some of which are still in use today. We hiked ...

... the inca king didnt expect such force from the spanish, and marched his troups into the square without any weapons, and was over ruled by firearms and nasty spanish dudes! peru being peru, we also got to see three other tourist sites on the same cheap ticket...they really dont know how to make money here! and we wander up the steep but narrow cobbled street to the belen church, which once was used as the men´s hospital, and further up to the archeology museum which was the women´s ...

Now here in Cajamarca, one of the larger cities of the northern Sierra. Very nice city and some sites nearby to checkout. The ride was an epic, 8 hour jolt on gravel roads climbing the Maranon Valley. Not sure how long Ill be here.

... bombed by the local umbrella sellers in the first week. But they can only afford the odd Molotov cocktail, and when they´ve run out you by up and cooking. Excuse the pun. So we had lunch and tried the market. No jackets. We walked the streets no jackets. On the way back to the hotel we found a cake shop and after securing a sizable wedge of chocolate cake my lost jacket didn´t seen such a problem. Thursday, I spent two ...

... journey back to the hotel that I realized that my new phone has google maps, (which is way too cool) and that if I´d figured this out earlier we may not have got as lost as we did the day before. Que sera sera. Anyway we didn´t need it to get back. We rested, an hour and then went for diner downstairs. Adventurous lot that we are. Again Wojtek ordered the nightmare meal. Lambs heart. We´ve s had a lot of bad luck ...

... where a group of five dogs took an instant dislike to us and surrounded us as we passed, barking and snapping until we were out of there territory. For me, this wasn´t so bad. If you keep your head down and walk calmly passed and hold your arms close so they have nothing to nip, they won´t do you any harm. They just showing you who´s boss on this patch. The thing you don´t want to do is make sudden movements or run. Unfortunately Ewa ...